I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Thursday, August 4, 2011

The deadly hamburger

Make no mistake: this is a terrible movie. ;-) But it's also fun, with witty dialogue and an amusing turn by Kate Mulgrew (before she played a crazy woman on TV for seven years). The plot revolves around a cop and ex-Marine Corps vet who is recruited by a secret organization of assassins working for the U.S. government. Before he can take his first assignment, he is to be trained in martial arts by a second character named Chiun in a super-long, rather Karate Kid training montage.

Chiun (whip-thin, snake-quick) starts this training by evaluating Remo Williams (bulldog-esque, just a bit pudgy) in hand-to-hand combat. This goes about how you would expect in a bad 80s action movie: the bulldog kicks the martial arts expert's ass.

Ha ha. No, I'm kidding. The quick little martial artist destroys the bulldog, of course. "Your reflexes are terrible," Chiun says at one point, "the seasons move faster." Finally, after Remo gets the worst of it for a while, Chiun concludes (in regard to Remo's pudginess):

Chiun: Pitiful. I can see the deadly hamburger has done its evil work.

Which brings us to Raiden.'s attacks on Merciless.'s tech moon holdings in Venal (both referred to without their DOTs hereafter).

Raiden is one of those alliances that people who write about EVE like to charitably call "supercap-heavy." Two of their key corps, x13 and FinFleet, were cornerstones of the IT Alliance supercap arm. I'm not going to get into the creation of Raiden because it's been well-covered elsewhere. But the interesting thing is how they've come to rely on these tactics. Four out of their five top pilots this week rely on capital and super-capital ships to the exclusion of every other ship type. It points to an alliance that isn't interested in PvP so much as they are in PvS: player versus structures. ;-)

I pointed at Merciless last week as an example of a null-sec alliance trying to make do in sov warfare without a lot of super-caps, and said that I'd keep an eye on them. I have been, and they haven't had a good week this week. After Merciless reset their blues, Raiden decided that they wanted the tech moons that Merciless had picked up in Venal, and there's been a series of fights over them this week. Garst Tyrell wrote up a great battle report on the first of them on Failheap Challenge, a BR that was picked up by EN24 the next day.

The full battle report is well worth your time, but I will summarize it here. Raiden jumped 15 dreadnoughts onto a Venal tech moon tower, and were met by a Merciless AHAC gang. Once engaged, the Raiden group brought in a large fleet of Abaddons and Zealots, supported by Guardians and a triage Archon. A lot of PvP alliances would have ceded the field at this point, but Merciless stayed in it, switching primaries faster than the Raiden logistics could keep up and eventually destroying the triage carrier. Raiden's response was predictable: they escalated and brought in their supers, including a Titan.

With no counter to this, Merciless had no choice but to retire from the field. To their credit, they killed the cyno ship (a Thanatos) first. Here's the BR on eve-kill. I guess I don't have to say who proved themselves the superior PvP alliance in this one. But in the EVE version of a bad 80s action flick, the slow pudgy bulldog wins, every time.

In EVE, only results count. The moon was lost. The point was made again on a smaller scale in a second system the next day. This time, Merciless lost a number of dreads. In his BR for that fight, Garst commented "Supercaps online is a go".

Helen, an FHC moderator and member of the DRF bloc, was unsympathetic (edited slightly for clarity):

You can't go blaming anyone for using supers, as super cap ability has been the defining advantage in EvE 0.0 warfare for the last few years. If you want "good fights", then play on sisi or the AT. If you want to play at 0.0 sov/moon warfare then you need to be packing supers.

That says it all, I think. How one is supposed to afford this fleet of supers without some moons to start from isn't something Helen explains. As I've said before, any super-cap nerf scheduled for this winter is going to be at least a year too late. The deadly hamburger is doing its evil work.

Remo Williams: You know, Chiun, there are times when I really like you.
Chiun: Of course. I am Chiun.
Remo Williams: And there are times when I could really kill you.
Chiun: Good! We will practice that after dinner.

1 comment:

I suspect the Super-Capital nerf will not be the proper re-balancing many nullsec capsuleers are hanging their hopes on, and will be accompanied by other nullsec changes that off-set the nerf. If it is in CCP's financial interest to keep the market for supercaps jumping, jump it will.

EVE Online and the EVE logo are the registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights are reserved worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. EVE Online, the EVE logo, EVE and all associated logos and designs are the intellectual property of CCP hf. All artwork, screenshots, characters, vehicles, storylines, world facts or other recognizable features of the intellectual property relating to these trademarks are likewise the intellectual property of CCP hf. CCP hf. has granted permission to Jester's Trek to use EVE Online and all associated logos and designs for promotional and information purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not in any way affiliated with Jester's Trek. CCP is in no way responsible for the content on or functioning of this website, nor can it be liable for any damage arising from the use of this website.